He said the Coalition's policy was a miserable failure and will mean millions of Australians will not have high speed internet connections.

"I can't find a dumber piece of public policy than buying the copper off Telstra," he said after inspecting optic fibre being laid for the NBN at Gungahlin in northern Canberra.

"I mean, come on down, Alan Bond. Kerry Packer would be laughing all the way to the bank if he found a mug willing to buy Telstra's copper network."

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Under Telstra's current agreement with NBN Co, the copper network will progressively be retired as NBN Co's fibre optic cable is rolled out.

Senator Conroy accused Coalition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull of displaying ignorance about how the needs of broadband would evolve.

"Customers using the NBN are also connecting more devices to the NBN and this is where Malcolm Turnbull and their version of a broadband network fails miserably," he said.

"If you understand broadband, if you understand that it is being used for more applications that require more bandwidth every single day, then you know that Malcolm Turnbull's network is a fail.

"Malcolm Turnbull is going to build a one-lane Sydney Harbour Bridge because he says he can do it cheaper and faster."

Senator Conroy said the Telstra copper network was old and decaying and would not be able to deliver the internet speeds proposed by Mr Turnbull.

"The speeds he is going to claim today are defying the laws of physics and the quality of the copper in the ground," Senator Conroy said.

35 comments

Take a look in the mirror Mr Conroy and you will see what dumb really is

Commenter

mick

Location

chinderah

Date and time

April 09, 2013, 1:21PM

He gives reasons the policy is dumb and you say... him too? https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/tu-quoqueThis really is the quality of debate coming out of the right side of politics.

Commenter

Karlww

Date and time

April 09, 2013, 5:37PM

Karlww. Please don't offer up links to websites. You're answering a question nobody asked. If you can't seen that Conroy is a dullard that's your issue, not ours. We've had YEARS of examples and not a single one to the contrary. He's a git.

Commenter

Weary

Location

Sydney

Date and time

April 10, 2013, 9:56AM

mick"Dumb" is anyone who thinks the NBN won't be fully utilised by the time it is built.Even if the Libs concede defeat on this issue and complete the NBN, in 10 years time, people will be asking why we only planned on 100Mbps per premises.If we adopt Fraudband, we will be behind countries like NZ, PNG and Samoa who are all building faster broadband networks than Abbott.

Commenter

Steve

Date and time

April 10, 2013, 12:07PM

I had an argument with coworker that tried to convince me that very few people use the internet. These are the kinds of people that Abbott will fool into his lame alternative. The Labour NBN will set our infrastructure up for the next 10 to 15 years and worse case can be partially sold as an asset, recouping the money spent on it. Liberals proposed network is good for now but how will it fare in as little as 5 years?

Commenter

seth

Location

The Gong

Date and time

April 09, 2013, 1:56PM

Actually Seth the core of the NBN is that green fibre cable Conroy and Leigh are holding in their hands. Putting that in the ground will future proof NBN for 20-30 years, just like how the core copper network has kept us going for so long. All that is required is changing and upgrading the equipment at the end, which again is what has been happening to the copper network all these years.

The simple fact though is the copper network is at the limits of technology, no equipment company is looking to improve it any more. Yet here is Abbott and co proposing fibre to the node which will still use this copper cable. Sure that will make it better than ADSL but will only do us for 5-10 years. So to me really this highlights the issue, Liberals thinking short term, labor thinking long term. To me the Labor NBN is the LONG TERM better investment, despite it clearly costing a lot more.

PS itsn't it ironic that 3 years ago the libs were saying wireless was the future and we didn't need any cabled broadband network. Yet now they have back flipped and now say we do need copper but fibre to the node. I reckon if it weren't for the fact that Labor came up with it they too would be going fibre to the house.

Commenter

Jimmy

Location

CBR

Date and time

April 09, 2013, 4:16PM

seth, there is another "kind of people" - the ones like me in rural and regional areas who are convinced that Labor's NBN at best will never reach us and at worst is an Orwellian plotted conspiracy. Rather than put our faith in FTH, which we know we won't see in our life time, we're game to trust Malcolm can deliver FTN. That way we may one day see internet speeds measured in mbps rather than bytes per second, as is all to often our lot. http://www.southcoastregister.com.au/story/1415644/james-says-no-service-no-pay/?cs=203

Commenter

Acer Bic

Location

Kikatinalong (no NBN here, were rural)

Date and time

April 09, 2013, 4:45PM

Seth the Labor NBN plan to install fiber to the home is to setup our wired communications infrastructure needs for the next 50+ years, not just 10-15.

Some other points:Fiber is not affected by water intrusion (rain!)and is more resilient to degradation from the environment.The bandwidth of fiber is *magnitudes* greater than copper. There is a local company that has successfully tested 10 terabits per second (Tb/s) over a single strand of fiber - that's 10,00,000Mb/s. Current maximum offering of the NBN of 100Mb/s, so there's *plenty* of headroom for fiber to grow. Not so with copper.http://www.gizmag.com/cudos-fiber-optic-network-capacity/26969/

The copper network is expensive to maintain, some $110 per year per service greater than fiber

The ALP plan is a quick and dirty policy to get them into power. We will pay much more for this plan a few terms later, but what does that seem to matter?

For those that don't understand technology, this is like upgrading your 1972 HQ Holden Kingswood with a 350 Chev v8 to get more power vs buying a new v8 Commodore or Falcon.- It will cost half as much to do, but you're still running radial tuned suspension, drum brakes, bench seat, AM radio and no air conditioning - and it costs twice as much to run.

At what point do you realise you should replace the entire car - before or after spending the money upgrading that engine?

Commenter

Quasimofoso

Location

Brisbane

Date and time

April 09, 2013, 5:48PM

@Seth. For $50 billion + I'd expect more than 10 to 15 years out of FTTH.

Reality is that Conroy’s plan is extremely expensive and risks becoming a white elephant even prior to its completion in 2021+.

Being ignorant of the technologies involved and their development cycles Conroy ignored the potential alternatives and industry experts, and just threw money at the problem in typical Labor fashion.

FTTH may be the 'fastest' technical solution but its use ignores new advanced technologies that utilise existing copper and high speed point to point wireless solutions. These can be built faster and at much less cost than digging up almost every Australian street and the front gardens of 10 million properties.

Conroy shows his ignorance again in claiming the Coalition plan is a waste of money. It is in fact an incremental development in access to homes.... fibre is still required to the nodes, and fibre will still be built in new estates and no doubt where copper needs replacement in an area and wireless is not suitable..... far from a waste... but suits Conroy's requirement for a headline.

Commenter

Conroy's Folly

Date and time

April 09, 2013, 5:54PM

Whatever is done it needs to be done soon. I live in Gellibrand and have had enough of hearing about the NBN vapourware. This project needs to be brought back to original schedule no matter the cost as the cost of delay on national productivity is far greater.

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